To not have heard anything about Anita Sarkeesian, Zoe Quinn and other self-professed feminists the past years, one must have lived underneath one serious rock. Amidst unsubstantiated claims of sexism in video games, broad-ranging fraud in gaming journalism and the (in)famous quote by Sarkeesian that 'everything is sexist, you just got to keep pointing it out', a surge of so-called '3rd-wave feminism' took hold of the world.
What this essentially came down to was media report after media report of gang rapes on university campuses, of women being only paid a pittance at work compared to their male colleagues while having to suffer constant sexual harassment. Of women only being used as objects in movies, video games and accusations of young boys being 'programmed' this way to become abusive, objectifying monsters themselves when they grew up.
Most of this was quite familiar to many people already, at least those who had been around during the late 90s when the now infamous lawyer Jack Thompson made it his campaign to point out that everything in video games was about violence and that this was the explanation behind the (non-existing) rise in real-life violence, including the Columbine mass-shooting which supposedly was 'caused' by the video game 'Doom'.
Thompson's range of lawsuits and basic premise was soon to be found to be without any merit whatsoever, with study after study finding no link between violent video games and real-life violence. In fact, around the time that the first 3D first-person shooters were being introduced in the US, the crime statistics show a sharp drop-off in violent crimes. Ultimately Thompson was kicked out of the lawyer profession and faded away into obscurity.
Fast-forward to 2014 and we got Sarkeesian and others loudly proclaiming that it is 'proven' that sexism and sexual violence in video games teach boys and men to be sexist and violent towards women in real life as well. Sounds familiar? It should be, because it's the same song and dance all over again, only this time the main character is a woman and not a lawyer. Cue the 'must protect all women' politically correct memes.
After collecting over half a million dollars in donations and getting invited to the United Nations to propose legislation which would make it basically illegal to disagree with a woman/feminist on 'anti-harassment' grounds, those of us who are not part of Sarkeesian's army of loyal feminists and social justice warriors now are expected to go along with this, or risk being accused to 'harassment', 'rape threats', 'internalised misogyny' and 'supporting the patriarchy'.
Frankly it's all such an immense pile of hogwash, it is astounding that the world plus dog have gone along in it for so long. Or at least the mass media has, reporting on each accusation uttered by Sarkeesian et al. as if it is part of the Holy Gospel itself. Some have already jokingly begun to refer to Sarkeesian as the Pope of the Church of Feminism.
Now, let's wind back a bit. First of all, let's see what Sarkeesian and yours truly have in common. We are both white women. We were both raised in a rich, Western country. Both of us have been provided with virtually every opportunity imaginable. And yet Sarkeesian is claiming that she receives constant harassment and abuse from men, and that women in general in Western society are being oppressed, objectified and have little say in their future.
I cannot say that I share this opinion at all. In fact, I have a view on this issue which Sarkeesian doesn't and likely never will have, thanks to the things we do not have in common. I was namely not born as a regular woman, but as an intersex - specifically a hermaphrodite - woman and due to this spent the first two decades of my life thinking that I was male, due to my body's physiology and my environment.
Basically I am supposed to have experienced the 'male privilege' people like Sarkeesian claim exist and which women do not have access to. If this exists, I am not sure what it would be. I was bullied, harassed, beaten up and had to defend myself against bullies despite supposedly being part of the 'patriarchy'. I went through primary and high school being lonely and feeling different, ultimately finding out about my own giftedness.
Being gifted is a terrible curse and gift. Society doesn't understand it and the amount of cruel jokes, misunderstandings and outright abuse you receive as a result of it is astounding. All that you are theoretically capable of is mostly wasted on trying to deal with a society which is primitive, flawed and ignorant. It doesn't feel like you truly belong on the same planet as the people around you, but were transported there from the future or some advanced alien society.
Later I also found out that I had never been male, but am this intersex female. A hermaphrodite. If I thought before that being gifted was hard to live with, being openly intersex quickly made me reconsider that notion.
I learned about the horrific world of genital mutilation being forced upon intersex infants in so-called 'normalisation' surgeries, medical records being kept hidden from the victims of these practices, and a general approach towards exterminating every trace of intersex individuals, even classifying intersex as a disorder, with the term 'Disorder of Sex Development' (DSD).
For myself, I was brainwashed, made to believe that I had to be transsexual, go along with the whole transsexual protocol and undergo genital mutilation so that every trace of my intersex condition could be removed. I would be 'cured' at that point. I am pretty sure that is the standard approach among psychologists and physicians towards intersex cases. It is the reason why I fled my country of birth, to escape this level of persecution which saw me unable to get proper medical help for my condition.
As a result I suffered severe Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), along with a host of other traumatic disorders, as I began to suffer medical complications as a result of my untreated intersex condition. At this point I am still looking for medical help.
Did I mention that I have also been living as a woman for the past eleven years or so, the past three officially, even?
Being a woman never was a problem. Sure, I had to learn how to deal with (heterosexual) men, as due to my lack of a real puberty I was left completely naive and wholly unprepared for male attention. True, I did get raped back in 2006, but I would not put that on 'being a woman'. On that issue I blame being intersex and the largest 'gender team' in the Netherlands mistreating my case in every way possible, reducing me to an uncertain shell of a human being, looking for just someone to give some attention. On that count my hatred is fully directed towards the pig-faced bastard who did this to me, as well as those Dutch medical 'specialists'.
So no, being a woman never was a problem or issue. Being gifted and intersex most definitely were, though. It makes sense in a sick kind of way as well: men and women are normal in society, after all, while gifted and intersex people are seen as 'freaks' and not quite 'normal' humans. With doctors teaching (prospective) parents to see intersex children as being the victims of a birth defect, tragedy is unavoidable. Have fun randomly assigning a physical sex.
And gifted children? Child prodigies often burn out at an early age, never fitting well into society. Most others prefer to withdraw from the same society which harassed and bullied them and later simply refused to understand them. It is mostly just a lonely existence.
Returning to these self-professed, 3rd-wave, radical feminist types like this Anita Sarkeesian, I would thus like to in summary proclaim them to be a collection of self-absorbed, delusional and very pathetic whiners. They like to imagine a world in which their existence is required, where they can feel validated, even if it is at the cost of those women who do not wish to go along with their ideology, not to mention society in general.
I would never call myself a feminist. I proudly proclaim myself to be a humanist, for I do not discriminate. To me each person's suffering is equal. As I type this, both men and women are being oppressed in the cruel, Shari'a-ruled country of Saudi-Arabia. In Thailand young girls and boys are being raped in brothels by mostly Western tourists. In oligarchies like the US a small elite remain unfathomably rich at the cost of everyone else.
I am a strong believer in giving everyone an equal start and opportunities in life. One's accident of birth should be no ground for determining in any way or form what one can or cannot become in life. I believe in self-determination: full control over one's own life and body. I am vehemently against non-critical, non-medical surgeries on babies, infants and others who cannot make a decision about it themselves. I could not care in the slightest what the gender, sex, sexual-orientation, skin-colour, religion or favourite colour or food is of the person in question.
And Sarkeesian et al.? They would like to prosecute everyone online who disagrees with them, because mean messages on Twitter give them 'PTSD'. They're not victims. They just play one on TV.
Maya
Showing posts with label giftedness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label giftedness. Show all posts
Sunday, 1 November 2015
Sunday, 9 August 2015
On respect and being too alien
Ever since fleeing the Netherlands and becoming somewhat settled in my new country I have noticed that as the immediacy of survival subsided, I began to experience the return of memories of events which I had seemingly completely forgotten about. Much of it for apparently good reasons, as recollections from my childhood and early puberty indicate.
I had remembered that during my primary school time I was bullied, with groups of students standing around me during lunch breaks outside, harassing and ridiculing me, or trying to prevent me from cycling home. Events which seem to have slipped my mind included at least one time when a fellow student spit into my face, and another where some classmates were holding me while another punched me into my abdomen until I folded over in pain.
What was it that drove these classmates to be so incredibly cruel to me? I do not recall them doing something similar to others, whether in my year or to others in other classes. It's often said that appearing weak, easy to give in to demands, or just being 'weird' tends to attract bullies. Yet the scale at which this happened was astounding. It wasn't a single bully, but practically my entire class who participated. Enough to surround me multiple bodies thick during lunch breaks and enough to block an entire road and sidewalk.
This wasn't just limited to primary school either. During my subsequent first few years in high school the same pattern continued, with many of my classmates taking up the habit of surrounding me every time we were waiting for a new class to start and killing the time by verbally harassing me. It was during that time that I discovered that I'm susceptible to migraine attacks induced by stress. Almost every week for at least one year I'd be absent from part of that day's classes as I was forced to go home with another migraine, often being picked up by my mother as I was unable to cycle any more.
In both cases I managed to improve my situation considerably through violence. In both cases those instigating the worst bullying and harassment were guys, and in both cases I had to first use violence in order to make them stop. For some bizarre reason they then turned friendly towards me, as if the whole thing had just been some kind of outrageous test.
It all still makes me wonder what it is that seems to make people in general consider me to be different enough to single me out, not to mention wonder about the behaviour of people around me as a whole. There are plenty of things which likely play a role, including me living the first decades of my life as a bizarre kind of inverse transsexual: believing myself to be a guy while in reality I always was a girl in body and mind. For the most part at least.
And then there's the second curse, that of being gifted. Not thinking or seeing things the way those around you of your age do, but preferring to converse with adults even as a child. Reading books for adults because children's books are boring and simplistic. It's another great way to find oneself to be very lonely, as no group recognizes itself in your combination of physical and mental age, even as your own mind keeps striving to outpace even the most learned adults around you.
All of these memories seem to blend together with my struggles of the past decade and some, with the bullying, harassment and condescension of physicians, psychologists and other supposedly learned and intelligent people. Their belligerent attitudes are to me little different from those of the bullies and their hangers-on who used to torment me as a child and teenager.
It all serves to reinforce for me that both physically and mentally I'm too different, too alien for most to ever accept or understand me. I'm surrounded every day by people for whom I might as well be an alien from outer space, as I'm nothing like them and they cannot comprehend what it's like to be so different.
This is not to say that there aren't individuals here on this planet who do respect me, but they are far and few between. Most people avoid me because I'm too strange. Those who should help me because of their occupation meet me with scorn and derision, rejoicing in making me out to be a complete and utter liar. This sadly often leads me to be suspicious of people acting friendly towards me. I have never enjoyed playing the victim, which is why I have always kept up a brave and happy face through all of these decades of physical, mental and psychological abuse, harassment and worse, yet I'll be damned if I am not allowed to feel at least a little bit that I have deserved something of a break at this point.
A good night's sleep without being plagued by barely remembered nightmares and traumatic recollections would be a start.
Maya
I had remembered that during my primary school time I was bullied, with groups of students standing around me during lunch breaks outside, harassing and ridiculing me, or trying to prevent me from cycling home. Events which seem to have slipped my mind included at least one time when a fellow student spit into my face, and another where some classmates were holding me while another punched me into my abdomen until I folded over in pain.
What was it that drove these classmates to be so incredibly cruel to me? I do not recall them doing something similar to others, whether in my year or to others in other classes. It's often said that appearing weak, easy to give in to demands, or just being 'weird' tends to attract bullies. Yet the scale at which this happened was astounding. It wasn't a single bully, but practically my entire class who participated. Enough to surround me multiple bodies thick during lunch breaks and enough to block an entire road and sidewalk.
This wasn't just limited to primary school either. During my subsequent first few years in high school the same pattern continued, with many of my classmates taking up the habit of surrounding me every time we were waiting for a new class to start and killing the time by verbally harassing me. It was during that time that I discovered that I'm susceptible to migraine attacks induced by stress. Almost every week for at least one year I'd be absent from part of that day's classes as I was forced to go home with another migraine, often being picked up by my mother as I was unable to cycle any more.
In both cases I managed to improve my situation considerably through violence. In both cases those instigating the worst bullying and harassment were guys, and in both cases I had to first use violence in order to make them stop. For some bizarre reason they then turned friendly towards me, as if the whole thing had just been some kind of outrageous test.
It all still makes me wonder what it is that seems to make people in general consider me to be different enough to single me out, not to mention wonder about the behaviour of people around me as a whole. There are plenty of things which likely play a role, including me living the first decades of my life as a bizarre kind of inverse transsexual: believing myself to be a guy while in reality I always was a girl in body and mind. For the most part at least.
And then there's the second curse, that of being gifted. Not thinking or seeing things the way those around you of your age do, but preferring to converse with adults even as a child. Reading books for adults because children's books are boring and simplistic. It's another great way to find oneself to be very lonely, as no group recognizes itself in your combination of physical and mental age, even as your own mind keeps striving to outpace even the most learned adults around you.
All of these memories seem to blend together with my struggles of the past decade and some, with the bullying, harassment and condescension of physicians, psychologists and other supposedly learned and intelligent people. Their belligerent attitudes are to me little different from those of the bullies and their hangers-on who used to torment me as a child and teenager.
It all serves to reinforce for me that both physically and mentally I'm too different, too alien for most to ever accept or understand me. I'm surrounded every day by people for whom I might as well be an alien from outer space, as I'm nothing like them and they cannot comprehend what it's like to be so different.
This is not to say that there aren't individuals here on this planet who do respect me, but they are far and few between. Most people avoid me because I'm too strange. Those who should help me because of their occupation meet me with scorn and derision, rejoicing in making me out to be a complete and utter liar. This sadly often leads me to be suspicious of people acting friendly towards me. I have never enjoyed playing the victim, which is why I have always kept up a brave and happy face through all of these decades of physical, mental and psychological abuse, harassment and worse, yet I'll be damned if I am not allowed to feel at least a little bit that I have deserved something of a break at this point.
A good night's sleep without being plagued by barely remembered nightmares and traumatic recollections would be a start.
Maya
Tuesday, 17 February 2015
The things left unremembered in one's past
A while ago I touched upon something which may have happened to me when I was still very young. An event which around the age of five turned me from a cheerful, open and very chatty child into one which was withdrawn, quiet and generally avoided contact with others until I was about twenty-one. Not because I consciously wanted to, because I always felt very frustrated at not fitting in and feeling like I somehow not belonged there. During many interviews over the past years I have referred to this change when I was a child as a result of me being intersex and possibly because of my giftedness as well.
Yet as more and more memories are returning to me over the past months, I'm beginning to remember things which do not fit in with that theory. Memories which seem to fit better with a far more disturbing thing which my mother asked me once about, in a very concerned manner. The matter being whether I remember being sexually or otherwise physically abused as a young child. Back then I said that no, I could not remember any such thing ever happening to me and the mere thought seemed ridiculous to me.
The past years that confidence has been slowly eroding, however. Digging further into my past and especially recently remembering things I had completely forgotten about. The important clues are in the way I changed after my fifth year. Becoming quiet and withdrawn are things which can easily happen to children who are gifted or otherwise 'different' from their peers, so that in itself is nothing to get worried about. What is upsetting is that I more and more vividly remember a far more disturbing trend, namely that of... I'd almost call it an obsession with thoughts about sexuality, as well as the worrisome aspect of me exposing myself in a variety of situations.
Especially the latter is more akin to the behaviour observed in young children who suffered sexual abuse, as they begin to imitate or otherwise repeat actions performed or observed. It's a disconcerting notion that I began to do these things without really understanding why it was so important if not obsessive to me. I remember going through a similar period of excessive sexual behaviour after suffering getting raped in 2006. That lasted for over a year until I met someone who made me wake up from that nightmare.
Why would I worry about it if I really did get sexually abused as a 4-5 year old child? It's in the past, right? I'm an adult now and nothing which happened to me as a child can hurt me now. Everyone knows that.
Of course, that's utter nonsense. There has been an increasing number of studies which show just how severe the impact of childhood experiences is, particularly those involving trauma. If it's true that I did suffer sexual or similar abuse at such a young age it'd explain a lot about my behaviour after that time, also about my intense withdrawal from social life and the intense struggle with emotional puberty far beyond what would seem reasonable merely from me being intersex.
It's still possible that nothing happened, and it was all just coincidence. Maybe I was just a weird child that I felt compelled to do those in hindsight incredibly embarrassing things, even if I cannot for the life of me remember what made me do it beyond just 'an urge'. Maybe I'm underestimating the effect my then unrecognised intersex condition had on me, emotionally. Yet the puzzle pieces still don't fit nicely.
Maybe I'll remember some day. Maybe not. Only time will tell.
Maya
Yet as more and more memories are returning to me over the past months, I'm beginning to remember things which do not fit in with that theory. Memories which seem to fit better with a far more disturbing thing which my mother asked me once about, in a very concerned manner. The matter being whether I remember being sexually or otherwise physically abused as a young child. Back then I said that no, I could not remember any such thing ever happening to me and the mere thought seemed ridiculous to me.
The past years that confidence has been slowly eroding, however. Digging further into my past and especially recently remembering things I had completely forgotten about. The important clues are in the way I changed after my fifth year. Becoming quiet and withdrawn are things which can easily happen to children who are gifted or otherwise 'different' from their peers, so that in itself is nothing to get worried about. What is upsetting is that I more and more vividly remember a far more disturbing trend, namely that of... I'd almost call it an obsession with thoughts about sexuality, as well as the worrisome aspect of me exposing myself in a variety of situations.
Especially the latter is more akin to the behaviour observed in young children who suffered sexual abuse, as they begin to imitate or otherwise repeat actions performed or observed. It's a disconcerting notion that I began to do these things without really understanding why it was so important if not obsessive to me. I remember going through a similar period of excessive sexual behaviour after suffering getting raped in 2006. That lasted for over a year until I met someone who made me wake up from that nightmare.
Why would I worry about it if I really did get sexually abused as a 4-5 year old child? It's in the past, right? I'm an adult now and nothing which happened to me as a child can hurt me now. Everyone knows that.
Of course, that's utter nonsense. There has been an increasing number of studies which show just how severe the impact of childhood experiences is, particularly those involving trauma. If it's true that I did suffer sexual or similar abuse at such a young age it'd explain a lot about my behaviour after that time, also about my intense withdrawal from social life and the intense struggle with emotional puberty far beyond what would seem reasonable merely from me being intersex.
It's still possible that nothing happened, and it was all just coincidence. Maybe I was just a weird child that I felt compelled to do those in hindsight incredibly embarrassing things, even if I cannot for the life of me remember what made me do it beyond just 'an urge'. Maybe I'm underestimating the effect my then unrecognised intersex condition had on me, emotionally. Yet the puzzle pieces still don't fit nicely.
Maybe I'll remember some day. Maybe not. Only time will tell.
Maya
Wednesday, 14 January 2015
Drudging through the certainty of uncertainty
Yesterday I had the first job interview as I keep searching for a new job after my current contract ends next month. Supposedly there are a lot of tech companies in Karlsruhe, but so far the results are pretty thin. There's still every possibility that I'll be opting for a job which will take me somewhere else in Germany or even to another (European) country. Yesterday's job interview was all right, I guess. Sticking point was mostly that I never had a formal education and thus no papers to hand over as 'proof' of my abilities. This is likely to be the point which will decide whether I'll be offered the job or not. Times like these it's just plain annoying that formal education never worked for me due to my giftedness and that because I'm an autodidact I learned everything on my own instead.
There was also the issue that the headhunter who had brought me into contact with this company had referred to me in his emails to the company using male pronouns, for some reason. Whether or not this was intentional, it led to an uncomfortable scene during the interview and together with the uncertainty about the certifications, it left me in a rather depressed mood by the time I got back home. Being intersex sucks. Being gifted sucks. Still having to find some job which I can at least somewhat like is beyond cruel. It reinforces for me that I should get to the point where I can just work for myself again.
At any rate I still slept okay last night, though the dream I had was quite interesting. Last time I had a processing dream regarding the period I shared this apartment with this one girl was early last year when I stayed at this student's place. That dream was a complete nightmare, which awoke me with pounding heart and unable to shake off the feeling of dread and of being hunted. This dream was a lot milder in comparison. In it I had a girlfriend. Just a nice, pleasant, awesome girl I felt totally at ease with. Yet throughout the dream I kept having flashbacks because of certain events and actions which led me to having to shake them off and realize that my girlfriend wasn't like that other person. It made me realize just how deep the feeling of panic and being hunted goes.
Not too shocking when I recall just how horrible that time was, I guess. Like taking a shower and glimpsing over my shoulder every few moments in sheer terror because I expected her to stand there again, staring at me. Or the friendly facade when in public and the constant bullying and abuse when alone together. I'd honestly rather kill myself than go through that ever again. I have gone through a lot of horrible things the past years, but that one is definitely in the top 5 of things I'll elect to chew on a cyanide capsule for in order to prevent experiencing it again. Having a dream like I had last night is a positive sign in that regard, I hope. Maybe I'll some day be able to accept that I can start my first relationship and even sharing the same house with that person without it feeling like I just invited a vampire to enter my abode.
I also woke up last night at one point because of the pain in my lower abdomen and lower back. It's usually around this time of the month that both pains get pretty severe. While I started taking the pill again a few weeks ago thanks to my GP, the symptoms didn't vanish, although they got considerably more mild compared to the last months when I didn't take the pill. Especially the severe cramps on my right side and in my lower right abdomen are far less pronounced. The lower back pain is there, but not crippling. I also hadn't had my right leg go all numb yet this month unlike with previous months.
I'm pretty sure I'll still have to go to my gynaecologist to inquire whether he may know of some other examination to figure out what this pain is about. Another major symptom which is also slightly less severe, but still most definitely there and agonizing at times is located in the area where the entrance of the vagina would be/is. Around the time of my 'menstruation', to refer to it like that, said area becomes very painful and sore. Sitting becomes painful or uncomfortable and going to the toilet ranges from discomfort to nearly passing out from waves of agony. Back in the Netherlands I went to the ER for this issue at one point, but the doctor examining me just prodded me, had me screaming out in pain and told me to just go eat some ibuprofen.
If it's in fact the vagina entrance, as found before during the exploratory surgery in 2011, which is being irritated or inflamed because of some kind of flow that's part of the menstruation cycle, then it's quite risky. Beyond the usual risk of scarring, there's the risk of sepsis and other possibly lethal complications, similar to the risks associated with the use of tampons when they are left in too long. This is why I have been pushing to have that vaginal reconstructive surgery for years now, to get answers on what's going on and solve any lingering issues in that area. Unfortunately it's unlikely that I'll get medical help in the next ten years either.
Finally there's the whole 'living in Germany' part. I have said before that I do not dislike this country or the people in it, and I still hold hope for the medical system here. If there's an issue which makes my life harder than it should be it's probably still the language. While my German language skills have improved to the point where I can talk with most people here in German for most conversations, I'm painfully aware of my limited German vocabulary and limited control of German grammar. At least this is something which is relatively easy to solve and I find German to become a more pleasant language the easier it gets to use it for me. That said, I still loathe legal German, but I doubt I'm alone in that one.
Even after I managed to stop blaming myself for everything that's gone wrong in my life, there is still enough to get upset about and it doesn't change my traumas, even if it dulls some of the pain a little. I still suffer from suicidal depressions and I still don't believe that I'll ever feel happy again in my life. I have nightmares of slaving for some faceless company with little time left for myself until I'm old and worn out, then to die alone and unhappy with none of my dreams fulfilled. I am feeling ever more distant from my body as I have to dissociate from it to shut out the pain of having been born with a body that's so controversial. I still loathe living in an apartment where there are so many sounds which trigger my traumas, break down my emotional defences or just outright disgust me between the constant and irregular ticking of the heating system, hearing every step and some discussions not to mention every drop spilled in the toilet from upstairs.
No, happy I am not. The best I can aim for at this point is 'stable'. Stable enough to still fight on for a better existence. A better life which doesn't fill me with the sensation of utter futility and despair. Even thinking about everything that I still have to do to make my life even a little better, even if it's just moving to a better place, I feel more tempted to just give up on the spot than to undertake it. Yet I have to. Even if it hurts. Even if it makes me feel suicidal. Even if it makes me feel like life is pure torture. Because dying is so incredibly hard.
That's my motivation to keep trying to live on, even through all this confusion, hatred, pain, sadness and bitterness. Dying is just too hard right now.
Maya
There was also the issue that the headhunter who had brought me into contact with this company had referred to me in his emails to the company using male pronouns, for some reason. Whether or not this was intentional, it led to an uncomfortable scene during the interview and together with the uncertainty about the certifications, it left me in a rather depressed mood by the time I got back home. Being intersex sucks. Being gifted sucks. Still having to find some job which I can at least somewhat like is beyond cruel. It reinforces for me that I should get to the point where I can just work for myself again.
At any rate I still slept okay last night, though the dream I had was quite interesting. Last time I had a processing dream regarding the period I shared this apartment with this one girl was early last year when I stayed at this student's place. That dream was a complete nightmare, which awoke me with pounding heart and unable to shake off the feeling of dread and of being hunted. This dream was a lot milder in comparison. In it I had a girlfriend. Just a nice, pleasant, awesome girl I felt totally at ease with. Yet throughout the dream I kept having flashbacks because of certain events and actions which led me to having to shake them off and realize that my girlfriend wasn't like that other person. It made me realize just how deep the feeling of panic and being hunted goes.
Not too shocking when I recall just how horrible that time was, I guess. Like taking a shower and glimpsing over my shoulder every few moments in sheer terror because I expected her to stand there again, staring at me. Or the friendly facade when in public and the constant bullying and abuse when alone together. I'd honestly rather kill myself than go through that ever again. I have gone through a lot of horrible things the past years, but that one is definitely in the top 5 of things I'll elect to chew on a cyanide capsule for in order to prevent experiencing it again. Having a dream like I had last night is a positive sign in that regard, I hope. Maybe I'll some day be able to accept that I can start my first relationship and even sharing the same house with that person without it feeling like I just invited a vampire to enter my abode.
I also woke up last night at one point because of the pain in my lower abdomen and lower back. It's usually around this time of the month that both pains get pretty severe. While I started taking the pill again a few weeks ago thanks to my GP, the symptoms didn't vanish, although they got considerably more mild compared to the last months when I didn't take the pill. Especially the severe cramps on my right side and in my lower right abdomen are far less pronounced. The lower back pain is there, but not crippling. I also hadn't had my right leg go all numb yet this month unlike with previous months.
I'm pretty sure I'll still have to go to my gynaecologist to inquire whether he may know of some other examination to figure out what this pain is about. Another major symptom which is also slightly less severe, but still most definitely there and agonizing at times is located in the area where the entrance of the vagina would be/is. Around the time of my 'menstruation', to refer to it like that, said area becomes very painful and sore. Sitting becomes painful or uncomfortable and going to the toilet ranges from discomfort to nearly passing out from waves of agony. Back in the Netherlands I went to the ER for this issue at one point, but the doctor examining me just prodded me, had me screaming out in pain and told me to just go eat some ibuprofen.
If it's in fact the vagina entrance, as found before during the exploratory surgery in 2011, which is being irritated or inflamed because of some kind of flow that's part of the menstruation cycle, then it's quite risky. Beyond the usual risk of scarring, there's the risk of sepsis and other possibly lethal complications, similar to the risks associated with the use of tampons when they are left in too long. This is why I have been pushing to have that vaginal reconstructive surgery for years now, to get answers on what's going on and solve any lingering issues in that area. Unfortunately it's unlikely that I'll get medical help in the next ten years either.
Finally there's the whole 'living in Germany' part. I have said before that I do not dislike this country or the people in it, and I still hold hope for the medical system here. If there's an issue which makes my life harder than it should be it's probably still the language. While my German language skills have improved to the point where I can talk with most people here in German for most conversations, I'm painfully aware of my limited German vocabulary and limited control of German grammar. At least this is something which is relatively easy to solve and I find German to become a more pleasant language the easier it gets to use it for me. That said, I still loathe legal German, but I doubt I'm alone in that one.
Even after I managed to stop blaming myself for everything that's gone wrong in my life, there is still enough to get upset about and it doesn't change my traumas, even if it dulls some of the pain a little. I still suffer from suicidal depressions and I still don't believe that I'll ever feel happy again in my life. I have nightmares of slaving for some faceless company with little time left for myself until I'm old and worn out, then to die alone and unhappy with none of my dreams fulfilled. I am feeling ever more distant from my body as I have to dissociate from it to shut out the pain of having been born with a body that's so controversial. I still loathe living in an apartment where there are so many sounds which trigger my traumas, break down my emotional defences or just outright disgust me between the constant and irregular ticking of the heating system, hearing every step and some discussions not to mention every drop spilled in the toilet from upstairs.
No, happy I am not. The best I can aim for at this point is 'stable'. Stable enough to still fight on for a better existence. A better life which doesn't fill me with the sensation of utter futility and despair. Even thinking about everything that I still have to do to make my life even a little better, even if it's just moving to a better place, I feel more tempted to just give up on the spot than to undertake it. Yet I have to. Even if it hurts. Even if it makes me feel suicidal. Even if it makes me feel like life is pure torture. Because dying is so incredibly hard.
That's my motivation to keep trying to live on, even through all this confusion, hatred, pain, sadness and bitterness. Dying is just too hard right now.
Maya
Sunday, 4 January 2015
Giftedness and intersex: society, you done f'd up
As the year 2014 ended and the new year began with a number of disappointments it seems to have triggered me to relapse into myself for a while, revisiting many memories and events of the past. Somewhere in there I should be able to find my self, probably. Nothing made sense any more and I didn't know where to go or what to do any more. Meanwhile one terrible flashback after another plagued me during the day. During my sleep nightmares and confusing dreams haunted me as I desperately tried to find the answers to my questions.
It's in many ways reminiscent of how I lived after I got raped as my first sexual experience. This happened now over eight years ago. First it took me a while to acknowledge what had happened. After that I could admit that it was a horrible experience. Then I blamed myself for had happened. I continued that for a while. What made me refocus my loathing and hatred against myself was a series of conversations with this woman at whose place I lived for a month. She told me about her own story of sexual abuse and rape. She told me so many details and how she felt throughout it all, but most importantly after it was finally over.
You know when they say that sometimes things just 'click' inside your mind? Acceptance is one of those things. What this woman taught me was that I didn't choose any of the things which had happened. That at no point did I invite the guy to do any of these things to me, but that it was him who forced himself on me. It sounds simple, but it's so very hard to reach that point. Not in the least because of the intense hatred and rage you then feel towards this b*st*rd who did such a horrific thing to you. Such hatred is good, for a while. Nurse it as it is your strength while you heal the worst of your emotional scars.
I never chose to be born smart, being gifted and all that. I didn't choose to go through an education system in a society incapable of dealing with someone with my way of learning and general intellect. I didn't choose to be bullied by classmates. I didn't choose to have this education system crush my spirit and make me feel worthless. I hate it for what it did to me. I hate these classmates. I hate everything about it so much. I didn't do any of it. They forced it all on me. I loathe every one of those involved for being such miserable, ignorant souls. Yet I no longer loathe myself.
I never chose to be born intersex. I didn't choose to get one incorrect diagnosis after another. I didn't lie to myself, others did. I didn't choose to be physically and psychologically abused by physicians and psychologists. I didn't choose to be brainwashed into believing that I had to be transgender or some other insane diagnosis when I knew very well that it was nonsense. I didn't develop traumatic disorders because I wanted to have them. I went to the limits of my capabilities and beyond to resolve the fundamental questions about who and what I am. I did right. I stayed true to myself. I can only loathe those who hurt me for being ignorant fools. In a way I hate them for what they did to me, whether it was knowingly or out of sheer ignorance.
Yet even with society bullying, abusing and raping me again and again like this, I'll never blame myself again. I don't deserve that.
Society screwed up. Society cannot deal with someone who is gifted, intersex, or both. I can deal perfectly fine with both. The problem in my life is society, not myself.
It's a simple conclusion, but it takes a while to make it all click.
Society should be more than just ashamed of itself. It should loathe itself for the sick, twisted nightmare of a rotting, puss-filled carcass it is. At this point there's no redeemable quality in it whatsoever.
Maya
It's in many ways reminiscent of how I lived after I got raped as my first sexual experience. This happened now over eight years ago. First it took me a while to acknowledge what had happened. After that I could admit that it was a horrible experience. Then I blamed myself for had happened. I continued that for a while. What made me refocus my loathing and hatred against myself was a series of conversations with this woman at whose place I lived for a month. She told me about her own story of sexual abuse and rape. She told me so many details and how she felt throughout it all, but most importantly after it was finally over.
You know when they say that sometimes things just 'click' inside your mind? Acceptance is one of those things. What this woman taught me was that I didn't choose any of the things which had happened. That at no point did I invite the guy to do any of these things to me, but that it was him who forced himself on me. It sounds simple, but it's so very hard to reach that point. Not in the least because of the intense hatred and rage you then feel towards this b*st*rd who did such a horrific thing to you. Such hatred is good, for a while. Nurse it as it is your strength while you heal the worst of your emotional scars.
I never chose to be born smart, being gifted and all that. I didn't choose to go through an education system in a society incapable of dealing with someone with my way of learning and general intellect. I didn't choose to be bullied by classmates. I didn't choose to have this education system crush my spirit and make me feel worthless. I hate it for what it did to me. I hate these classmates. I hate everything about it so much. I didn't do any of it. They forced it all on me. I loathe every one of those involved for being such miserable, ignorant souls. Yet I no longer loathe myself.
I never chose to be born intersex. I didn't choose to get one incorrect diagnosis after another. I didn't lie to myself, others did. I didn't choose to be physically and psychologically abused by physicians and psychologists. I didn't choose to be brainwashed into believing that I had to be transgender or some other insane diagnosis when I knew very well that it was nonsense. I didn't develop traumatic disorders because I wanted to have them. I went to the limits of my capabilities and beyond to resolve the fundamental questions about who and what I am. I did right. I stayed true to myself. I can only loathe those who hurt me for being ignorant fools. In a way I hate them for what they did to me, whether it was knowingly or out of sheer ignorance.
Yet even with society bullying, abusing and raping me again and again like this, I'll never blame myself again. I don't deserve that.
Society screwed up. Society cannot deal with someone who is gifted, intersex, or both. I can deal perfectly fine with both. The problem in my life is society, not myself.
It's a simple conclusion, but it takes a while to make it all click.
Society should be more than just ashamed of itself. It should loathe itself for the sick, twisted nightmare of a rotting, puss-filled carcass it is. At this point there's no redeemable quality in it whatsoever.
Maya
Saturday, 15 November 2014
Survival In The Absence Of Safety
Those who follow me on Twitter may have noticed me suffering another mental breakdown last Friday. For the past weeks it's been a recurring thing that I'd be returning home after a day at work only to break down in tears. While work is a bit more stressful than I'd have liked due to the usual dealings around contract renewal, it's only a small part of the immense emotional load which has been steadily building up over the past months. The main issue is that of safety.
Tracing back my memories a year, two years, a decade... even two decades ago I do not recall feel 'safe', if we define 'safe' as feeling care-free and without any significant worries. Primary school saw me being bullied a lot in addition to being forced to redo one of the early years because I was deemed 'too playful'. This led to my contact with my few friends at the time slipping. At home I never felt really safe because of my older brother who'd not shy away from physical force if I refused to give into demands. In effect I grew up alone, with only cursory contact with my fellow human beings, including my own siblings and parents.
Books were safe, I guess. Withdrawing from reality I could forget about the worsening situation as my giftedness curse made itself very apparent during high school when I'd bounce between schools and options, losing track of myself and my true capabilities. I began to suffer intense migraines due to the stress, also from the intense bullying I had to deal with. Until last year I had nightmares involving school. At home I had to deal with my father who didn't understand why I was being so 'difficult' and why I couldn't just be good at school if I was as smart as I claimed to be. My mother protected me, but could only do so much.
My room was the last safe place I had. Then my parents divorced and I had to move together with my mom, leaving behind all that I knew. The rest is well-known to anyone who follows me for a while now; unable to find anything to ground myself in reality all I had were my programming and science projects. After moving again I tried school again for a bit, but felt no connection and got scolded by the teachers for 'doing too much' and 'being unmotivated'. I felt I had to find a place for my giftedness, but just couldn't. Ultimately I quit school altogether.
That's when the whole 'intersex' thing came into play, making me realize that everything I thought I knew about my own body was an utter and complete lie. That my very existence and life had been built around a deception. I wasn't this person I had been told I was. Heck, even the mirror had been lying to me all that time as I began to realize as I allowed more and more of reality to slip into my tiny little world. Shortly after that I became the victim of rape by someone I trusted, forever shattering any fantasies I may have had about sexuality being wonderful and respecting another person's body.
To make matters even worse then, my body became the battleground for different teams of physicians, each coming to an entirely different conclusion. Some insisting that I was clearly mentally ill as my body was obviously that of a male while I couldn't see this, while others clearly saw that I have a hermaphroditic body. This war left both my body and mind a wreck and forced me to flee the country where I was born and raised as I could no longer feel safe there.
Yet even having escaped the country it still haunts me. My body is still a battleground. My body and mind are still a wreck until it can be resolved through medical intervention which is actively being denied to me. The Netherlands is actively denying that I suffered any traumatic disorders due to its treatment of my case and is relentlessly pursuing me in a criminal case which resulted from me suffering a mental breakdown and black-out due to a DID-episode (Dissociative Identity Disorder: the splitting of one's memory/personality due to extreme trauma) which was the direct result of this treatment. Not to mention having physicians in the Netherlands refuse to treat me due to being intersex.
My apartment isn't safe either. Every moment another letter can fall into the mailbox which horribly upsets me. There are ticking, stomping and other noises all the time which make my mind switch from 'alert' into 'agitated' mode to then trigger another emotional breakdown. Wearing headphones and listening to loud music is how I survive during the day. Wearing earplugs at night is how I manage to get at least a few hours of restless sleep. The stomping about of the upstairs neighbours is audible whatever I try and always interpreted as a threat by my mind. There's no peace or quiet anywhere. There's no place where I can sit down, relax and just let my mind wander for a while without any sounds disturbing me.
Oh, and stalkers. Got those too.
I survive at this point only by blotting out reality as well as I can. All sounds and signs of it whenever I can. Yet I cannot stop my own thoughts from agonizingly pouring over all details of everything that hurts me. While my mind stuffing the worst traumatic memories into their own little sections (DID) so that I can still function somewhat in daily life, this is somewhat akin to storing all kinds of heavy, pointy and blunt objects in cardboard boxes suspended above your head with thin strings. All it takes is one trigger.
Friday's breakdown - which continues today - is me just running out of the mental energy required to keep fighting. Sure, I can still perform the programming tasks I'm required to perform at work, but don't ask me to socialize or deal with anything else other than those which merely require me to use my intellectual side. I cannot deal with what the accursed country of the Netherlands keeps throwing my direction. I cannot deal with trying to find a solution for this horrific body I was cursed with. I doubt that there's a place for gifted people in society and cannot deal with people any more trying to find someone who actually understands my conundrum there.
You could say that last Friday was when I died emotionally. There's nothing to live for any more, because I'm already dead.
Not that any of you people are real, of course. Nobody actually read any of this I wrote on this blog. I imagined all interactions over the past decade except for the medical and psychological torturing. Because otherwise I'd not still be suffering. There is no safety in this world. Things will just get worse from here. Any of you voices inside my head claiming otherwise have to explain the past decades to me.
Better to end this suffering soon.
Maya
Tracing back my memories a year, two years, a decade... even two decades ago I do not recall feel 'safe', if we define 'safe' as feeling care-free and without any significant worries. Primary school saw me being bullied a lot in addition to being forced to redo one of the early years because I was deemed 'too playful'. This led to my contact with my few friends at the time slipping. At home I never felt really safe because of my older brother who'd not shy away from physical force if I refused to give into demands. In effect I grew up alone, with only cursory contact with my fellow human beings, including my own siblings and parents.
Books were safe, I guess. Withdrawing from reality I could forget about the worsening situation as my giftedness curse made itself very apparent during high school when I'd bounce between schools and options, losing track of myself and my true capabilities. I began to suffer intense migraines due to the stress, also from the intense bullying I had to deal with. Until last year I had nightmares involving school. At home I had to deal with my father who didn't understand why I was being so 'difficult' and why I couldn't just be good at school if I was as smart as I claimed to be. My mother protected me, but could only do so much.
My room was the last safe place I had. Then my parents divorced and I had to move together with my mom, leaving behind all that I knew. The rest is well-known to anyone who follows me for a while now; unable to find anything to ground myself in reality all I had were my programming and science projects. After moving again I tried school again for a bit, but felt no connection and got scolded by the teachers for 'doing too much' and 'being unmotivated'. I felt I had to find a place for my giftedness, but just couldn't. Ultimately I quit school altogether.
That's when the whole 'intersex' thing came into play, making me realize that everything I thought I knew about my own body was an utter and complete lie. That my very existence and life had been built around a deception. I wasn't this person I had been told I was. Heck, even the mirror had been lying to me all that time as I began to realize as I allowed more and more of reality to slip into my tiny little world. Shortly after that I became the victim of rape by someone I trusted, forever shattering any fantasies I may have had about sexuality being wonderful and respecting another person's body.
To make matters even worse then, my body became the battleground for different teams of physicians, each coming to an entirely different conclusion. Some insisting that I was clearly mentally ill as my body was obviously that of a male while I couldn't see this, while others clearly saw that I have a hermaphroditic body. This war left both my body and mind a wreck and forced me to flee the country where I was born and raised as I could no longer feel safe there.
Yet even having escaped the country it still haunts me. My body is still a battleground. My body and mind are still a wreck until it can be resolved through medical intervention which is actively being denied to me. The Netherlands is actively denying that I suffered any traumatic disorders due to its treatment of my case and is relentlessly pursuing me in a criminal case which resulted from me suffering a mental breakdown and black-out due to a DID-episode (Dissociative Identity Disorder: the splitting of one's memory/personality due to extreme trauma) which was the direct result of this treatment. Not to mention having physicians in the Netherlands refuse to treat me due to being intersex.
My apartment isn't safe either. Every moment another letter can fall into the mailbox which horribly upsets me. There are ticking, stomping and other noises all the time which make my mind switch from 'alert' into 'agitated' mode to then trigger another emotional breakdown. Wearing headphones and listening to loud music is how I survive during the day. Wearing earplugs at night is how I manage to get at least a few hours of restless sleep. The stomping about of the upstairs neighbours is audible whatever I try and always interpreted as a threat by my mind. There's no peace or quiet anywhere. There's no place where I can sit down, relax and just let my mind wander for a while without any sounds disturbing me.
Oh, and stalkers. Got those too.
I survive at this point only by blotting out reality as well as I can. All sounds and signs of it whenever I can. Yet I cannot stop my own thoughts from agonizingly pouring over all details of everything that hurts me. While my mind stuffing the worst traumatic memories into their own little sections (DID) so that I can still function somewhat in daily life, this is somewhat akin to storing all kinds of heavy, pointy and blunt objects in cardboard boxes suspended above your head with thin strings. All it takes is one trigger.
Friday's breakdown - which continues today - is me just running out of the mental energy required to keep fighting. Sure, I can still perform the programming tasks I'm required to perform at work, but don't ask me to socialize or deal with anything else other than those which merely require me to use my intellectual side. I cannot deal with what the accursed country of the Netherlands keeps throwing my direction. I cannot deal with trying to find a solution for this horrific body I was cursed with. I doubt that there's a place for gifted people in society and cannot deal with people any more trying to find someone who actually understands my conundrum there.
You could say that last Friday was when I died emotionally. There's nothing to live for any more, because I'm already dead.
Not that any of you people are real, of course. Nobody actually read any of this I wrote on this blog. I imagined all interactions over the past decade except for the medical and psychological torturing. Because otherwise I'd not still be suffering. There is no safety in this world. Things will just get worse from here. Any of you voices inside my head claiming otherwise have to explain the past decades to me.
Better to end this suffering soon.
Maya
Wednesday, 5 November 2014
One Question About Giftedness I'll Never Be Able To Answer
The past week has really brought back to me rather unpleasant memories of trying to deal with being gifted, most of them school-related. Of failing at one level of education and going down a level to try it there, only to find out that it made things only much, much worse. Of grasping the basics of string and M (membranes) theory, not to mention a profound interest in the principles behind faster than light travel by space-time folding (using a space-time 'bubble'), while nearly flunking the basic Newtonian physics classes and performing poorly at best with highschool-level mathematics.
Much of my life seems to consist out of others as well as myself asking me why I can't just do those simple things if I apparently understand much more complex things so well. That's really the core question: Why do I have such an incredible hard time doing anything simple if I'm so smart?
Only answer I have found so far is, while truthful, a rather simplistic 'because it's boring'. I described this in the previous post as well to some extent. I always feel this pull to focus on cool, shiny, highly complex projects. Something involving high-level mathematics and complex engineering processes, doing something I preferably haven't done before yet to create something awesome and amazing which approaches sheer magic. Things like human-level AI, a new, superior processor architecture or artificial organs matching or exceeding the capabilities of their organic counterparts. You know, things which are quite possible if you just spend some time and effort on it.
For me to function on a daily basis involves a lot of pulling myself away from the tasks I enjoy to do the boring, menial tasks. Like eating. Or getting the mail. Or sleeping. That's not to say that they have to be tasks I dreamed up myself to be interesting, though. If someone points me to a project or task where I feel I can challenge myself in some way that's just fine too. Even assembling some Ikea furniture works well at times. Those can be vicious projects, as many can attest to.
It's still hard to explain this properly, though. Heck, I cannot even properly grasp it myself what I'm really trying to say here. Why can't I do simple things? Why do I get distracted so easily if not challenged? What exactly draws me in a task? What is challenging and interesting to me? What motivates and demotivates me?
Supposedly I'm really smart. While I don't like IQ numbers, the results of the test I took at a Dutch institute many years ago combined with some additional research would place me somewhere pretty high, with a wide distribution of things I'm really good at, only limited by my 'crippled' auditory skills as a result of being a purely visual learner. I'm a complete autodidact, have photographic memory and tend to be very independent. Yet this appears to be all just a handicap when it comes to daily life.
In the case of giftedness it's, as many have said before me, a matter of living in a different plane of existence. It's like you can see more than others, see connections and possibilities they can't. You can see this big, beautiful world, nay, universe of options around you, but you feel crushed every time you realize that it's just you seeing it. Every time you have to work in 'their' plane of existence you feel downcast, out of place and quickly demotivated. You just want to go back to your own plane, your own place of being.
Even as I write the above I feel like it'd just seem like gobbly-gook nonsense to many reading it. It's more of a way to visualize and describe what I feel and what I have heard others like me describe before. The feeling of not really belonging in society, of having no interest in 'common' tasks, of always seeking the next intellectual challenge, of never picking something 'easy'.
In some ways it's good, but also terrible for me to realize all of this so clearly again. As if me having been born with a super-unusual body wasn't enough to make me feel not quite part of human society - especially after the treatment I got because of it - my giftedness has always been that 'thing' which I have. Even as a young child I was always the quick learner, the technical-minded one, the one who got always jokingly referred to as 'the professor'. I also always had to hear how high people's expectations were of me. I have no idea how highly people thought or still think of me, but I always feel like I haven't lived up to any of their expectations, never mind any of my own.
I didn't pick to be born intersex. I didn't pick to be born gifted. I didn't pick this society which deals very poorly with either. It's my burden and curse which I'll somehow have to learn to live with. Explaining it to others so that they can maybe understand me better would be a good first step.
Maya
Much of my life seems to consist out of others as well as myself asking me why I can't just do those simple things if I apparently understand much more complex things so well. That's really the core question: Why do I have such an incredible hard time doing anything simple if I'm so smart?
Only answer I have found so far is, while truthful, a rather simplistic 'because it's boring'. I described this in the previous post as well to some extent. I always feel this pull to focus on cool, shiny, highly complex projects. Something involving high-level mathematics and complex engineering processes, doing something I preferably haven't done before yet to create something awesome and amazing which approaches sheer magic. Things like human-level AI, a new, superior processor architecture or artificial organs matching or exceeding the capabilities of their organic counterparts. You know, things which are quite possible if you just spend some time and effort on it.
For me to function on a daily basis involves a lot of pulling myself away from the tasks I enjoy to do the boring, menial tasks. Like eating. Or getting the mail. Or sleeping. That's not to say that they have to be tasks I dreamed up myself to be interesting, though. If someone points me to a project or task where I feel I can challenge myself in some way that's just fine too. Even assembling some Ikea furniture works well at times. Those can be vicious projects, as many can attest to.
It's still hard to explain this properly, though. Heck, I cannot even properly grasp it myself what I'm really trying to say here. Why can't I do simple things? Why do I get distracted so easily if not challenged? What exactly draws me in a task? What is challenging and interesting to me? What motivates and demotivates me?
Supposedly I'm really smart. While I don't like IQ numbers, the results of the test I took at a Dutch institute many years ago combined with some additional research would place me somewhere pretty high, with a wide distribution of things I'm really good at, only limited by my 'crippled' auditory skills as a result of being a purely visual learner. I'm a complete autodidact, have photographic memory and tend to be very independent. Yet this appears to be all just a handicap when it comes to daily life.
In the case of giftedness it's, as many have said before me, a matter of living in a different plane of existence. It's like you can see more than others, see connections and possibilities they can't. You can see this big, beautiful world, nay, universe of options around you, but you feel crushed every time you realize that it's just you seeing it. Every time you have to work in 'their' plane of existence you feel downcast, out of place and quickly demotivated. You just want to go back to your own plane, your own place of being.
Even as I write the above I feel like it'd just seem like gobbly-gook nonsense to many reading it. It's more of a way to visualize and describe what I feel and what I have heard others like me describe before. The feeling of not really belonging in society, of having no interest in 'common' tasks, of always seeking the next intellectual challenge, of never picking something 'easy'.
In some ways it's good, but also terrible for me to realize all of this so clearly again. As if me having been born with a super-unusual body wasn't enough to make me feel not quite part of human society - especially after the treatment I got because of it - my giftedness has always been that 'thing' which I have. Even as a young child I was always the quick learner, the technical-minded one, the one who got always jokingly referred to as 'the professor'. I also always had to hear how high people's expectations were of me. I have no idea how highly people thought or still think of me, but I always feel like I haven't lived up to any of their expectations, never mind any of my own.
I didn't pick to be born intersex. I didn't pick to be born gifted. I didn't pick this society which deals very poorly with either. It's my burden and curse which I'll somehow have to learn to live with. Explaining it to others so that they can maybe understand me better would be a good first step.
Maya
Sunday, 2 November 2014
On Intelligence And Feeling Not Quite Human
Often 'feeling human' appears to be synonymous with 'being like everyone else'. In a way this makes sense since a society is supposed to be composed out of more or less like-minded individuals, with the more deviation from what's considered 'normal', the less cohesion you'd find. Society is order. This also implies that relatively small issues can tear a society apart, even if it's on issues such as food, drink and entertainment.
Inversely this means that for an individual to be considered part of a society they have to 'fit in', i.e. they need to have sufficient overlap in all areas considered relevant by a society. This is the source of a great deal of strife for many individuals. Sadly also for myself. Even ignoring the chaos surrounding my intersex condition there are plenty of reasons why I'd have trouble fitting in.
There are small details, such as me not smoking cigarettes, not drinking alcohol or coffee, not eating meat and fish, these because the way I experience things like taste and smell in a very different way from what is considered 'normal'. I found out that I'm at least in the relatively small group of so-called 'super-tasters', which are people for whom the experience of especially 'bitter' and related taste is far more pronounced, making ethanol, coffee and such to be decidedly unpleasant to taste. The social impact of this is relatively minor, but can make situations slightly awkward when everyone around you is drinking alcohol and you settle for some soda or fruit juice.
There are also other physical differences, such as me being ambidextrous, meaning that my brain doesn't make any difference between my right and left hand in terms of capabilities. Being able to use a mouse, pen, (power) tools, etc. equally well with either hand is a proper asset in my view. It's also fun to freak out north-paws (right-handed people) by configuring your desktop setup in a south-paw setup. It's a great party trick and socially more of an asset, really.
If it was just that I'd be doing okay, I guess. Unfortunately, even long before my intersex condition became such a hugely negative thing in my life, something else I was born with was overshadowing my life already. It's the kind of thing which nobody who doesn't have it truly understands and which is decidedly both a blessing and a terrible curse. This is largely because in a society where everything is more or less based around average or slightly-below average intelligence, being highly intelligent (gifted) puts you right outside of what people can deal with. Worse, it leaves you in a situation where neither you nor your environment knows what to do about it.
The positive part about me being gifted has been an uncanny ability to absorb knowledge and skills, also thanks to the photographic memory I was blessed with. I can scan through a text on any subject and give a perfect summary. I'm also in a quite rare group of gifted people, too, as I'm a visual-spatial learner as it's called. This means that I do not think in 'words', like most people but in visual impressions. To me anything spoken and anything audible is just another 'image'. When I listen to a song I see the song: its structure and colouring. I can also link parts of its structure to other songs based on what it looks like to me.
Not being able to deal well with spoken language puts me at a distinct disadvantage, sadly. If I don't focus on a conversation so that I can convert it to a visual representation, it's gone. This makes one on one discussions quite tiring and something like a two-hour meeting at work into near-torture. It also means that I have a distinct preference for communicating with others in a non-auditory manner, such as via written messages on internet forums, IRC and the like. While I'm very much an extroverted personality, many mistake me for an introverted person for this reason.
There's also a thing like knowing and seeing too much. To a gifted person usually the world doesn't look black or white, but has so many greys and colours that it's often hard to exactly see all the different nuances. This also makes it hard to communicate with non-gifted people, as they tend to function in this 'black and white' world, with or without a few shades of grey mixed in. Sometimes it feels like you're trying to talk with a blind person about the wonderful colours and shapes one can see on this planet and in the universe. An uninterested blind person at that, who is more than content to stay that way.
It all leads to motivation or the lack thereof. School is very hard, especially for visual-learners like me, as without sufficient stimulation we tend to drift off with our thoughts and focus towards more interesting topics and projects, thus flunking the subject and getting punished for being 'bad' at something, while all that's the problem is merely a lack of motivation. I was supposedly doing 'poor' at mathematics during highschool, while I was merely bored and doing quantum mechanics instead, reading up on my M membranes, string theories and different approaches to the Theory of Everything (solving the contradictions in special relativity, gravity and other theories). I saw logarithmic equations and classical (Newtonian) physics merely as tools you read up on in a book when you needed them, not as a required skill to learn then and there.
Teachers of course don't understand this. Despite it being clear that I wasn't dumb due to the hundreds of books I had read at that point, not to mention winning the story contest the first year with a 'very mature' contribution according to the jury, they were frustrated with my seemingly inability to learn certain things. All of it led to things being dumbed down, resulting in me losing every more motivation until at the end I was mostly just reading print-outs from scientific articles, working on a concept for artificial, magnetically actuated muscles and reading books during classes while still acing most tests after scanning the textbook once. I didn't do homework either, yet the final year I easily made it through the final exams with relatively good scores. Imagine if I had actually been motivated.
Where I am today, when I ignore the intersex mess again, I still don't feel that I really belong in society due to my intersex condition. The more I go to the fringes of society, where I meet up with the other nerds and similar social outcasts, the more I come across like-minded people and the more I feel at home. Sadly that's not really where one can make a living in society. At work I notice that few of my colleagues can understand the way I think or work. They can just decide to do a task and embark on it right away. I first have to analyze it, then come up with an approach which is most optimal and implement the whole thing in less time than they took while preventing any bugs and other potential issues. Along the way I'll also come up with at least half a dozen related ideas to optimize other parts of the process and/or project.
To then have to work together with others who don't think like me nor understand or appreciate how this brain of mine works is then borderline impossible. It's frustrating for both sides and not very productive as most of the time we'll just be feeling lost about what the other is thinking. Communication suffers and ultimately the others give up on me while I become completely demotivated and try to find something to challenge me instead. Meanwhile I'll be feeling useless, incapable of doing anything useful, let alone capable of functioning in a team. So much for motivation.
It makes me feel like I'm some kind of alien in a human society at times. I don't think and function like a human. I don't even see, taste or smell things the way they do. My mind is constantly filled with the most wondrous ideas, concepts and prototypes for amazing technologies for robotics, AI and such, which I have to keep tearing myself away from to focus on some mundane task which I'm quite sure I could have automated or otherwise improved on if given a week to work out the details. No chance, of course, so I have to keep suppressing these thoughts.
All of it makes me wish I could just go home, to whatever planet I actually came from. I don't want to be 'human' if it means giving up being who and what I am. Not to mention what I wish to become, just so that I can 'fit in'.
Maya
Inversely this means that for an individual to be considered part of a society they have to 'fit in', i.e. they need to have sufficient overlap in all areas considered relevant by a society. This is the source of a great deal of strife for many individuals. Sadly also for myself. Even ignoring the chaos surrounding my intersex condition there are plenty of reasons why I'd have trouble fitting in.
There are small details, such as me not smoking cigarettes, not drinking alcohol or coffee, not eating meat and fish, these because the way I experience things like taste and smell in a very different way from what is considered 'normal'. I found out that I'm at least in the relatively small group of so-called 'super-tasters', which are people for whom the experience of especially 'bitter' and related taste is far more pronounced, making ethanol, coffee and such to be decidedly unpleasant to taste. The social impact of this is relatively minor, but can make situations slightly awkward when everyone around you is drinking alcohol and you settle for some soda or fruit juice.
There are also other physical differences, such as me being ambidextrous, meaning that my brain doesn't make any difference between my right and left hand in terms of capabilities. Being able to use a mouse, pen, (power) tools, etc. equally well with either hand is a proper asset in my view. It's also fun to freak out north-paws (right-handed people) by configuring your desktop setup in a south-paw setup. It's a great party trick and socially more of an asset, really.
If it was just that I'd be doing okay, I guess. Unfortunately, even long before my intersex condition became such a hugely negative thing in my life, something else I was born with was overshadowing my life already. It's the kind of thing which nobody who doesn't have it truly understands and which is decidedly both a blessing and a terrible curse. This is largely because in a society where everything is more or less based around average or slightly-below average intelligence, being highly intelligent (gifted) puts you right outside of what people can deal with. Worse, it leaves you in a situation where neither you nor your environment knows what to do about it.
The positive part about me being gifted has been an uncanny ability to absorb knowledge and skills, also thanks to the photographic memory I was blessed with. I can scan through a text on any subject and give a perfect summary. I'm also in a quite rare group of gifted people, too, as I'm a visual-spatial learner as it's called. This means that I do not think in 'words', like most people but in visual impressions. To me anything spoken and anything audible is just another 'image'. When I listen to a song I see the song: its structure and colouring. I can also link parts of its structure to other songs based on what it looks like to me.
Not being able to deal well with spoken language puts me at a distinct disadvantage, sadly. If I don't focus on a conversation so that I can convert it to a visual representation, it's gone. This makes one on one discussions quite tiring and something like a two-hour meeting at work into near-torture. It also means that I have a distinct preference for communicating with others in a non-auditory manner, such as via written messages on internet forums, IRC and the like. While I'm very much an extroverted personality, many mistake me for an introverted person for this reason.
There's also a thing like knowing and seeing too much. To a gifted person usually the world doesn't look black or white, but has so many greys and colours that it's often hard to exactly see all the different nuances. This also makes it hard to communicate with non-gifted people, as they tend to function in this 'black and white' world, with or without a few shades of grey mixed in. Sometimes it feels like you're trying to talk with a blind person about the wonderful colours and shapes one can see on this planet and in the universe. An uninterested blind person at that, who is more than content to stay that way.
It all leads to motivation or the lack thereof. School is very hard, especially for visual-learners like me, as without sufficient stimulation we tend to drift off with our thoughts and focus towards more interesting topics and projects, thus flunking the subject and getting punished for being 'bad' at something, while all that's the problem is merely a lack of motivation. I was supposedly doing 'poor' at mathematics during highschool, while I was merely bored and doing quantum mechanics instead, reading up on my M membranes, string theories and different approaches to the Theory of Everything (solving the contradictions in special relativity, gravity and other theories). I saw logarithmic equations and classical (Newtonian) physics merely as tools you read up on in a book when you needed them, not as a required skill to learn then and there.
Teachers of course don't understand this. Despite it being clear that I wasn't dumb due to the hundreds of books I had read at that point, not to mention winning the story contest the first year with a 'very mature' contribution according to the jury, they were frustrated with my seemingly inability to learn certain things. All of it led to things being dumbed down, resulting in me losing every more motivation until at the end I was mostly just reading print-outs from scientific articles, working on a concept for artificial, magnetically actuated muscles and reading books during classes while still acing most tests after scanning the textbook once. I didn't do homework either, yet the final year I easily made it through the final exams with relatively good scores. Imagine if I had actually been motivated.
Where I am today, when I ignore the intersex mess again, I still don't feel that I really belong in society due to my intersex condition. The more I go to the fringes of society, where I meet up with the other nerds and similar social outcasts, the more I come across like-minded people and the more I feel at home. Sadly that's not really where one can make a living in society. At work I notice that few of my colleagues can understand the way I think or work. They can just decide to do a task and embark on it right away. I first have to analyze it, then come up with an approach which is most optimal and implement the whole thing in less time than they took while preventing any bugs and other potential issues. Along the way I'll also come up with at least half a dozen related ideas to optimize other parts of the process and/or project.
To then have to work together with others who don't think like me nor understand or appreciate how this brain of mine works is then borderline impossible. It's frustrating for both sides and not very productive as most of the time we'll just be feeling lost about what the other is thinking. Communication suffers and ultimately the others give up on me while I become completely demotivated and try to find something to challenge me instead. Meanwhile I'll be feeling useless, incapable of doing anything useful, let alone capable of functioning in a team. So much for motivation.
It makes me feel like I'm some kind of alien in a human society at times. I don't think and function like a human. I don't even see, taste or smell things the way they do. My mind is constantly filled with the most wondrous ideas, concepts and prototypes for amazing technologies for robotics, AI and such, which I have to keep tearing myself away from to focus on some mundane task which I'm quite sure I could have automated or otherwise improved on if given a week to work out the details. No chance, of course, so I have to keep suppressing these thoughts.
All of it makes me wish I could just go home, to whatever planet I actually came from. I don't want to be 'human' if it means giving up being who and what I am. Not to mention what I wish to become, just so that I can 'fit in'.
Maya
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